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Abstract

Whereas educational inequalities between women and men and differences in labor market participation shrinked or even diminished during the last decades, the gender pay gap remained stable over time. This is remarkable because the pay gap has attracted much more attention as the main target of anti-discrimination policies. Using data from the IAB (Institute for Employment Research), we analyze whether the average pay gap between women and men working full-time can be explained by their employment in different industries, occupations, and firms. As the smallest level of analysis we focus on occupations within firms (job cells). This strategy of analysis yields the best possible approximation to the concept of “within-job wage gap”. The results show that women with equivalent training and occupational experience earn wages that are 12 percent less than the wages of men in such job cells. Even though the educational participation of women rose to that of their male counterpart, the gender composition of labor market participation changed and the pressure of equal employment policies grew, the gender wage gap does not decrease within our observation period (1993–2006). In conclusion, we discuss theoretical and methodological reasons for this finding.